Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) BBC 'placed charity worker in danger'

BBC 'placed charity worker in danger'
by
02/07/2009 00:00:00

A ZIMBABWEAN charity worker has fled to South Africa after she claims the BBC ‘identified’ her - placing her on President Robert Mugabe’s murder hit-list. Edith Tsamba, 35, says in April she helped the BBC make a report for Radio 4’s Today programme entitled “Still Living in Fear”.

It featured a mother whose who was sexually abused - along with two of her daughters, one just 13 - by militiamen from Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. The bulletin broadcast on June 9 also told how the victims were now living in a safe house in the capital Harare.

But Edith claims an internet version of that story on the BBC’s website revealed the identity of that house -- her home.

Within days, the mother-of-three, funded by the UK charity Save the Children, scarpered to Pretoria “knowing despot Mugabe’s bloodthirsty henchmen would be on her tail”, she told the UK’s Sun newspaper.

Edith runs a charity Angels for Life, which offers education for children whose lives have been torn apart by years of economic decline, blamed on Mugabe’s previous government before he was forced to share power with his opponents in February.

Sobbing Edith said from the South African capital, Pretoria: “The picture of the house has now been moved from the internet. They said they would protect me.

She told the Sun: “The fact that I helped the BBC is a slap in the face to Mugabe. His underworld are now just waiting to get their hands on me.

“Save the Children now want me to go back to Zimbabwe. If I do, you will be reading about my body in pieces.”

A spokesman for Save the Children said one of their Zimbabwe-based executives paid for Edith to go to a hotel in Pretoria three weeks ago as a humanitarian gesture.

He added: “We do not have a formal relationship with her. We are not in a position to keep funding her in South Africa - there comes a stage where we can do no more.

“We are not aware the BBC put her at risk.”

The BBC declined to comment.

Labels: BBC, NEOCOLONIALISM, PROPAGANDA

posted by MrK @ 4:32 PM